The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 2024-2025
Samsung's factory know-how raised a pickle plant's output 39%
Samsung's smart-factory advisors automated a pickled-radish plant in a dying town, lifting daily output 39% and cutting 33 box types to 4.
Nature Green (Natural Green) · Samsung Electronics
the move
Nature Green is a pickled-radish specialist founded in 2004, with about 9.9 billion won in sales and a 10% share of Korea's market. Its town of Mungyeong is classified as a population-decline risk zone, so it depended on migrant labour and had workers doing repetitive shovelling that caused musculoskeletal problems.
Samsung Electronics' smart-factory programme embedded advisors on site to find improvements, then Nature Green funded them. The exterior packaging stage got a palletising system, lifting daily capacity 39% and cutting the box-carry time 38% per box. The seasoning and weighing stage swapped shovels and scoops for automatic blenders and meters, making flavour and hygiene consistent while removing the injury risk.
The team found and completed 95 improvement tasks, standardising 33 box sizes down to 4, splitting the gimbap and seasoned radish lines to cut defects, and moving a metal detector to meet food-safety rules. All of it cost roughly 500 million won.
why it works
- Mungyeong's shrinking labour pool made automation a survival decision, not a luxury.
- Automating the seasoning step removed both the quality variance and the repetitive-strain hazard in one move.
- Standardising 33 box styles to 4 cut changeover and management overhead.
- Separating the mixed production line lowered defect rates without new equipment.
what transfers
The know-how transfer worth paying for is not the robotics but the discipline: standardise boxes, split mixed lines, move inspection to the right point, and automate the step that injures people.
what came after
Nature Green is pursuing HACCP certification, which is mandatory for a company approaching 10 billion won in sales, and targets 200 billion won in three years by opening school-meal and institutional channels. Its CEO likens the new plant to a semiconductor process: automated, accurately metered, hygienic. The company has also spread contract farms to 10 regions.
references
- [스마트산업강국 함께하는 제조혁신 2.0] 삼성 스마트팩토리 노하우를 단무지 공장에 … 생산량 39% 껑충
- 문경 자연그린(주) 스마트공장 구축 설명회 가져 - 단무지를 반도체 공정에서
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